The Newt and Demon-8.81 - The Final Reforge

Gathering everyone at the square in Broken Tusk was out of the question. There were simply too many people. Instead, Theo had the idea to gather them in the arena, which worked perfectly. The stands had enough space to seat just about everyone comfortably, and every single visitor if they crowded. Thanks to the arena’s sound-enhancement enchantments, his voice would carry to all of them.

There had been a painting competition going on when he had arrived, and some people were quite upset about that. Most people in the stands were happy to see anything other than literal paint drying. Thanks to the help of the administrators, almost everyone was gathered in the arena within a few hours. During that time, Tresk and Khahar got up to some interesting adventures.

But Theo focused on his task, clearing his throat once everyone had gathered.

“We’re going,” Theo said, keeping his tone even. “The games can continue once we’re on the other side, but for now we need to leave.”

Voices rose from the crowd. There was uncertainty, anger, concern, and so on. But it hardly mattered. Theo was excited. He could abandon his plan to move in a rush, and could take his time. So long as he had enough time, he was positive he could make the move. His plan involved using a Shadow-infused Greater Aura Potion, infusing his willpower with more of Shadow’s power, wrapping the entire region in his aura, and teleporting.

Easy, right?

“I don’t know how long this will take me,” Theo said, listening to his voice echo through the arena. “But, I’m sure there’s enough time for you to get out. If you’re outside of my range during the reset, I can’t say what’ll happen. Likely, you’ll enter the queue for rebirth. You might just get teleported, but I don’t know.”

Sarisa placed a hand on Theo’s shoulder. “You got a lot of work to do. Leave the rest to us.”

“Yeah, we can wrangle these people.” Rowan cracked his knuckles.

“Okay. I’m going to Xol’sa’s tower.” Theo turned, considering walking. Eventually, he just folded the void. That was a power he would miss, but it had to be done. An instant later, he was standing on the tower’s second-highest floor. He settled onto a nearby sofa.

Theo closed his eyes, spreading his aura as far as it would go. Unenhanced, he could reach all of Broken Tusk, and some of Qavell. That was a feat in itself, but he needed more. Not only to cover a bit more area, but to do the jump. That was the hard part. He quaffed his Greater Aura Potion, infused himself with Shadow’s power, and spread his aura again.

This time, it went well beyond his previous bounds, but he dialed it back. Theo surrounded the total area he could handle. Now came the arduous task of clearing the way between Iaredin and Tero’gal. It was impossible to know how hard the task would be, so the alchemist fumbled through it. After some time, the amount of which he couldn’t have judged, he realized it was like digging a tunnel. He widened the path, locking onto a point just above Boar Hollow.

“Okay.” Theo wiped sweat from his brow. “This might take a while.”

***

The fight had already started in Leon’s world. The Warriors of the Shard had responded. Tresk got all this information from Khahar, who stood like the big grump he was. Theo had been doing his aura thing for about a day while she was with the Arbiter. Sure enough, not only could he travel to the mortal world, but he could also bring along a bunch of cat people. Those guys got temporary authority to fight, since someone had breached the local sector space.

It was all very technical and Tresk didn’t care much for technical things. She was driven by vibes, and the current mood was stabbing a bunch of weird-looking elves and monsters. As expected, the invaders went straight for the shards. It seemed as though they knew exactly where they were going and what to do. But they got stabbed all the same.

Looking out over a field, where far in the distance Alex shot enormous balls of fire that made some pretty cool explosions, Tresk sighed. This truly was the best day ever.

“What are you standing around for?” Khahar asked.

“I’m guarding the thing!” Tresk said, gesturing toward the shard tower behind her.

Khahar smiled. “We’ll have to move. I don’t think our attackers expected us to be prepared at all, so they’re targeting another anchor.”

Tresk clapped. “Let’s clean up and get to it!”

***

Taken from novelbuddy, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

The ground beneath Sarisa’s feet rumbled. The crowd of revelers cheered with excitement. She grumbled, shooting a look at her brother. “Do they have any idea what’s going on?”

Rowan laughed, shaking his head. “I don’t think they care.”

Keeping everyone under control had been a monumental task. All the administrators were working overtime to keep things together, but that wasn’t the worst part. Theo was taking forever to teleport them to their destination, and people were getting more rowdy by the moment. Near the edge of the aura, cracks had appeared in the ground as though the alchemist was ready to take them away. But those cracks had appeared a day ago, and showed no signs of advancing to the next stage… whatever that was.

“Okay everyone!” Sarisa shouted, her voice booming over the crowd. “Let’s sing another round of Dearest Mine Maiden!”

“Oh, I like that one,” Rowan said, clapping with excitement.

Sarisa sighed again, moving off from the crowd as they bellowed the song. She found Alise eventually, and dragged the poor woman to the side, far enough away from the song to have a conversation. “We’re going to have a riot soon.”

Alise laughed nervously. “You’re telling me?!” Her voice was absolutely manic. “Keeping these folks in line… It must be harder than holding the entire world together!”

“Woah!” Sarisa said as the ground rumbled hard. Everyone in the crowd went pitching to one side, most of them falling over. “Are we moving?”

Reports came in that the earthquake wasn’t from Theo moving them. Sarisa bit her lip, trying to keep calm as the situation got worse. Just when she thought she couldn’t take it any longer, she felt a strange energy racing through her chest. It took a moment, but the feeling of being pulled through something reminded her of what had happened before. She remembered the times that Theo had brought her to the other worlds, and a bright smile spread across her face.

Without wasting time, Sarisa dashed through the town. The sky above them flashed, going from the last vestiges of light for the day, to brilliant midday in an instant. She felt sick to her stomach, but trudged through the swamp with her brother close behind. Before long, she burst into the tower, taking stairs three at a time before reaching the spot Theo had built his little nest in. 𝘧𝑟𝑒𝑒𝘸𝘦𝘣𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝓁.𝘤𝘰𝓂

The alchemist was on the ground, panting for breath. Sarisa waited for a moment, feeling to see if they were falling from the air. But there was nothing. Everyone felt stable.

“Hey, you okay?” Sarisa asked, pulling Theo to a seated position. “Are we good?”

Theo blinked a few times, eventually shaking his head. “Tero’gal accepted my idea for a floating landmass, so… yeah. I think we’re going.”

“We’re here?” Rowan said, coming up and panting for breath. “For real?”

Theo nodded weakly. “We’re here. Someone help me up, I need to reforge everyone.”

There were dark circles under his eyes and he was covered in a layer of sweat. Sarisa held his hand, even if it was slick, and brought him to his feet. “Lean on me, big guy.”

Theo chuckled at that, swallowing hard. “If anyone had some watered wine…”

Rowan produced a wineskin before the words had fully left Theo’s mouth, and the alchemist drank deeply. He smiled, nodding with approval before handing it back.

“Thought I said ‘watered.’”

“Hey, you should see what the others are drinking. This is watered by comparison.” Rowan laughed nervously, helping guide him down the stairs.

It was hard to get Theo through the swamp path. Not because it was hard to traverse, but because the man was heavy and hardly seemed able to move. With time, they reached the area where most people had gathered. Apparently, the alchemist didn’t need all of them in one place. But he did need to recover, which resulted in him having a seat by the statue of Xol’sa and Zarali.

“The swamp is draining,” one adventurer said, coming and shouting over to Aarok.

“Yeah. We’re a floating damn city now,” Aarok grumbled. “Just check the edges of the island. Get Ziz and his crew to reinforce it.”

“Crumbling island and all that,” Rowan said idly.

How the island was floating was anyone’s guess. They just had to rely on the power of the planet to keep things working. Sarisa turned her attention to her charge, not relying on alchemical means to help Theo out, but mundane ones. She pressed a wet cloth against his forehead, checking his pulse and poking him a bit. The alchemist grumbled up at her, saying something about needing a few minutes to rest.

Those minutes expanded out until she carried him to the manor, tucking him into bed for a few hours of rest. From experience, she knew a couple of hours wouldn’t kill Tero’gal’s new residents. They might feel sick, depending on how strong they were, but they’d live. And there was no way Theo could do anything for them in his state.

A loud pop came from the room’s corner, Tresk appearing with twin daggers dripping with a thick ichor. She was pale, with a haunted look on her face. “Fenian came. He… uh… yeah…” After shaking her head, she regained some composure. “Surprised Theo lived…”

“What do you mean?” Sarisa asked.

Tresk shrugged, returning her blades to dimensional storage and scampering over. “He thought we needed to combine to move everything. I think he drew on too much of his own power to make that happen.”

“But we need to fix these people…”

“Can’t be that hard, can it?” Tresk said, cracking her knuckles. “I can replicate his power without stealing it. I think. Maybe—who cares?”

Sarisa felt her soul burning in her chest before she realized Tresk had even extended her aura. Falling to the ground, she gritted her teeth. The pain was only temporary, finally ending only after a second or two and resulting in the appearance of a novel system message.

[Reforged Soul]

Your soul has been reforged, pending a full system reboot. During this time, you will retain your general strength and power, but will not have access to your system-based skills, abilities, spells, etc.

Please stand by…

“Looks like the system is working with him.” Sarisa groaned as she rolled onto her stomach. Her arms shook as she pushed herself to her feet, the pain in her chest still lingering slightly. “Come on. We need to make sure your reforge thing worked on everyone. Rowan, stay with the infirmed man.”

“Gotcha.”